| A Word Edgewise
by Mary Joe Clendenin |
 |
O, THE BUZZING OF THE BEES
Do you ever wonder at the small thread by which your own being hangs? Or at the chance circumstances that determine the direction of situations in life? If dad hadn't put a help wanted ad in the Anson paper, my mother might never have come to Erath County and the two met. If someone hadn't been very, very hungry, oysters would never have found their way to the table. If children had worn the same style of underwear in 1878 that they do today, the bee and honey industry of Texas would have been entirely different.
Walter Somerford and his sister had read in school books about the complicated social life of bees, how the drones and nurses and queen bees run the bee world. Of course they had eaten honey--their dad had probably robbed wild bee trees--and they were interested in bees.
As Walter walked home from school one fall day in Grimes County, he noticed a swarm of bees in the pasture near the trail. He knew that with a swarm there was always a queen and that the swarm would go and stay wherever the queen found a home. Walter wanted those bees, but how could he get them. He thought for a minute, then he took off his shirt and pants and his suit of long underwear. He then dress without the undies. He tied the legs and arms of the garment in knots and then went for the bees.
Walter carried those bees home in his underwear--captured the bees in his BVD's-- and he and his sister were in the bee business from then on. Today, Weaver Apiaries of Lynn Grove community, south of Navasota, is one of the world's major beekeepers. (The name Weaver came from his sister's marriage.)
Where there are orchards and good gardens, bees must be near to help pollinate the blossoms. In the gathering of nectar, which the little insects stay busy as bees doing, they transport pollen from blossom to blossom and bush or tree to others.
Dad kept bees, much to the consternation of some of the men who plowed. The mule, old Katy, with her delicate ears, refused to behave when pulling a plow between the rows of peach trees with the little white hives setting about one to the skip. She had been stung a few times and remembered well the pain. The other mules were of like disposition.
Domestic bees, those of Italian descent as are most in the United States, are not aggressive. Dad did wear a face protector, usually, when he robbed the hives, but he didn't wear gloves. Moving gently and being careful not to mash one of the workers, he
brought in a big dishpan of honey from the hives west of the yard. Mother heated the honey so that the comb could be taken out more easily and put the honey in jars. We begged her to leave the comb in some, and she did. We liked to chew the comb. The rest of the comb would be taken back and placed near the hives for the bees.
Dad watched the bees, and grew to know their habits. I think they grew to know him, also. Occasionally, when another queen was raised in a hive, one moved out and a swarm would attach itself to a limb of a tree. Dad would go to it, find the queen at the root of the swarm, take her and some of the workers to another hive he had prepared. Soon they would have established another colony in the new place. I'm sure dad bought supplies from the Weavers.
Bees watered in the cement irrigation tank at the windmill--the same tank we kids claimed as our swimming pool. Occasionally a bee would break the cohesion of the water surface and be unable to take off. Dad showed me how to ease my hand under the bee and rescue it without getting stung.
Bees take the act of stinging seriously. After all, a bee devotes his life to the attack, because he leave his stinger and then dies afterward. The "Killer Bees", or Africanized bees, which can react to disturbances in two seconds, are the ones that give bees a bad name. They are like the Japanese Kami Kaze of WW II, willing to sacrifice their lives for the emperor, or queen in the case of bees. The African strain rarely take over a healthy hive, according to Dr. John Thomas, an entomologist at Texas A & M University. He says the bees do a multimillion dollar job of pollination for free. They pollinate fruits, vegetables, melons, berries of all kinds, and wild plants of all kinds.
Honey not only tastes wonderful, it and the wax from the honey, is used in many products. Dad thought bee stings would help rheumatism. In fact, honey has been used for medicinal purposes for centuries. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, prescribed honey for cuts, burns, wounds, abrasions, disorders of the stomach, bowel, nerves, nose, throat. It's used to make cough medicine, face creams and lotions, laxatives and more.
Friend June Luttrell said recently that she was told to eat, regularly, honey of local bees as a cure, or relief, from hay fever. Should work much like immunization shots. Since the bees used the pollen and nectar from the blossoms to which one is allergic, the honey offers the same in small (predigested) amounts, and one can build up an immunity to the pollen. June said it worked for her.
The wise King Solomon said in Proverbs 24:13, "My son, eat honey, for it is good, and the drippings of the honeycomb are sweet to your taste." He also warned to not eat too much: 25:27, "It is not good to eat much honey, so be sparing of complimentary words." Forget that last phrase. I like compliments.
-------------------------------------------
I have written, desk-top publication, a collection of ghost stories called, GALLOPING GHOSTS, just in time for Halloween. The cost of the book is $6.50, and you may get it from me or from the Book Store on the west side of the Bosque River Mall.